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The nature of any particular comparative study of education of course depends on the purposes for which it was undertaken and on the identity of the person(s) conducting the enquiry. This first chapter begins by noting different categories of people who undertake comparative studies of education. It then focuses on three of these groups: policy makers, international agencies, and academics. Although this book is chiefly concerned with the last of these groups, it is instructive to note similarities and differences between the purposes and approaches of academics and other groups.

Among the many approaches to research, a broad classification distinguishes between the quantitative and the qualitative. Boundaries may be difficult to determine, and the approaches may not be mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, the two approaches deserve focus because they permit different types of insights.

As the chapters of this book illustrate, there are many possible kinds of comparison involving theoretical concepts, political ideologies, whole cultures or individual cognitive skills. In some research traditions, abstractions may more often be the focus of educational research than detailed case studies of teaching and learning relationships. In cultures with a clear distinction between theory and practice and where theory has a higher status, it may be difficult to argue for the value of learning from experience. Theory may even develop in isolation from practice.

Comparative education analyses have traditionally focused on geographic entities as the unit of comparison. As this book demonstrates, comparisons can be made across many other units of analysis, including cultures, policies, curricula and systems. Nevertheless, even these alternative domains are inextricably bound to one or more places. In this respect, examining geographic entities as foci of comparative inquiry is an essential step for comparative study of education.

A great deal of comparative education research has focused on systems of education. Sometimes, however, this focus has been implicit rather than explicit, and the units of analysis have not always been clearly defined. This chapter begins by noting some prominent examples in which scholars have focused – or claimed to have focused – on systems of education. It then discusses methodological issues relating to the use of education systems as a unit of analysis in comparative research. It notes that some countries have multiple systems of education, and thus that research which focuses on systems can be intranational as well as cross-national.

How may one provide an introduction to comparing times within the field of comparative education that is more than a perfunctory handshake? A prerequisite is to reconnoitre the fundamental concepts involved, specifically in respect of “time” and its application in the field as a unit of comparison.

“Were the British truly imperialist?” asked the respected travel writer, Jan Morris (2005, p. 24). Does “The Chinese Learner” (Watkins & Biggs 1996) “invariably have a high regard for education”? Are “Asian students not only diligent, but also [possessed of] high achievement motivation”? (Lee 1996, p. 25). Do Finnish students enjoy some cultural advantage that enabled them to top the league tables produced by the 2000 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development? (Välijärvi 2002). Was it appropriate for South Africa’s 1951 Eiselen Commission to state that “education practice must recognise that it has to deal with a Bantu child, trained and conditioned in Bantu culture, endowed with a knowledge of a Bantu language and imbued with values, interests and behaviour patterns learned at the knee of a Bantu mother”? (Kallaway 1984, p. 175). And was it valid then to declare, as did Hendrik Verwoerd, Minister of Native Affairs in 1954, that “there is no place for [the Bantu] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour” (Kallaway 1984 p. 173)?

In the late 1980s, Cummings and associates highlighted a revival of interest in values education across the world. Their book, entitled (Cummings et al. 1988, p. 3), contained rich information about how values education had penetrated the curriculum in 90 countries. Values education continued to “revive” for over a decade, leading to another book entitled , edited by Cummings and another group of associates (Cummings et al. 2001). The book presented a study of values education in 20 country settings in the Pacific Basin, showing in one way or another how values education remained a major concern to educational leaders.

When George Bereday, a famous comparative educator from the Columbia University in New York, first heard of the work of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in the early 1960s, he said that the IEA researchers were comparing the incomparable. Perhaps he meant that it was impossible to compare pupils and schools from different cultures. Perhaps he meant that there were so many differences between systems of education that it was impossible to compare them. After all, the pupils begin school at different ages, the curricula are different, the ways in which teachers are trained are different, and, and, and, !

The word policy is commonly used in government documents, academic writings and daily conversations. However, the nature of policy and the ways in which it can be researched, interpreted and produced are open to debate. The literature that might assist in this matter is diverse, divided and to some extent inconclusive. In the words of Ball (1994, p. 15), it contains “theoretical uncertainties”; and answers to some questions and raise others.